
Obs_EL4^3. 
Book ^4-6. 



ME. WHIPPLE'S REPORT, 



AND 



MR. OTIS'S LETTER. 



>r 












BOSTON: 

PRINTED BY CASSADY AND MARCH, 

Mechanica' Hall No. 8 Wilson's Lane. 

1839. 



RHODE ISLAND LEGISLATURE. 

January Session.... 1839. 

- 



In General Assembly, Jan. 23. 

The Committee to whom were referred the resolutions of 
Mr. Wells, of Hopkinton, touching certain resolutions passed 
by the House of Representatives of the United States, on the 
12th of December, A. D. 1838, relative to petitions for the 
abolition of slavery, &c. &c, and also sundry petitions from 
citizens of this State relating to the right of petition, 

REPORT AS FOLLOWS : 

Whereas, the House of Representatives of the Congress of 
the United States, on the 11th and 12th clays of December, 
1838, passed the following Resolutions, viz : 

" Resolved, That this Government is of limited power, and that by the 
Constitution of the United States, Congress has no jurisdiction whatever 
over the institution of Slavery in the several States of the Confederacy. 

" Resolved, That petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia and the territories of the United States, and against the removal 
of slaves from one State to another, are a part of apian of operations set on 
foot to affect the institution of slavery in the several States, and thus indi- 
rectly to destroy that institution within their several limits. 

" Resolved, That Congress has no right to do that indirectly which it 
cannot do directly, and that the agitation of the subject of slavery in the 
District of Columbia, or in the territories, as a means or with a view of dis- 
turbing or overthrowing that institution in the several States, is against the 
true spirit and meaning of the Constitution, an infringement of the rights 
of the States affected, and a breach of the public faith on which they en- 
tered into the Confederacy. 

" Resolved, That the Constitution rests on the broad principles of equal- 
ity among the members of this Confederacy, and that Congress, in the exer- 
cise of its acknowledged powers, has no right to discriminate between the 
institutions of one portion of the States and another, with a view of 
abolishing the one or promoting the other. 

" Resolved, therefore, that all attempts on the part of Congress to abolish 
slavery in the District of Columbia, or the Territories, or to prohibit the re- 
moval of slaves from State to State, or to discriminate between the consti- 



(4) 

tutions of one portion of the Confederacy and another, with the view afore- 
said, are in violation of the constitutional principles on which the Union 
of these States rests, and beyond the jurisdiction of Congress; and that 
every petition, memorial, resolution, proposition or paper, touching or re- 
lating in anyjway or to any extent whatever, to slavery as aforesaid, or the 
abolition thereof, shall, on the presentation thereof, without any further 
action thereon, be laid on the table, without being printed, debated or re- 
ferred." 

Arid, whereas, in the judgment of this General Assembly, 
that part of the resolution, which declares that " every peti- 
tion, memorial, resolution, proposition or paper, touching or re- 
lating, in any way or to any extent whatever, to slavery as 
aforesaid, or to the abolition thereof, shall, on the presentation 
thereof, without any further action thereon, be laid on the table, 
without being printed, debated, or referred," is unsound in 
principle, a dangerous invasion of the right of the people to pe- 
tition Congress, and in violation of the true intent and meaning 
of the Constitution of the United States. 

Therefore, resolved, That the General Assembly do hereby, 
in the name of the people of this State, protest against said 
resolutions, and declare that in their opinion, they ought to be 
rescinded. 

Resolved, That his Excellency the Governor be requested 
to cause a copy of these resolutions, to be transmitted to the 
members of the United States House of Representatives from 
this State, to be by them laid before that body. 

All which is respectfully submitted by 

JAMES F. SIMMONS, 

For the Committee. 



Report of the Minority of the same Committee. 

The undersigned, one of the Committee to whom the fore- 
going resolutions were referred, begs leave to report, that as he 
differs in opinion from the other members of the Committee, 
he has felt it to be his duty to himself and to his constituents 
to give to the subject all the attention which his other en- 
gagements would permit. 

By the resolutions submitted byMr.Wells, from Hopkinton, the 
resolutions of the national House of Representatives of the 12th 
December 183S, are characterized " as a dangerous invasion of 
the right of the people to petition Congress, and in violation of 
the Constitution of the United States." 

The national House of Representatives is composed of manv 
distinguished statesmen and jurists, who are no strangers to the 
language and spirit of the constitution. Their personal and 



(5) 

individual interests are identified with the interests of the mass 
of the people, and their fidelity to lights of so plain and popu- 
lar a character as the right of petition is guarantied by the 
conciousness, that the slightest invasion of such rights seldom 
remains long unpunished. It is not to he presumed therefore 
that a violation of a privilege inherited from our ancestors, and 
in relation to which the people have always manifested a sensi- 
tive and jealous feeling, could have been premeditated or in- 
tended, especially as the object of those resolutions could have 
been accomplished in various other modes. Nor is there the 
slightest reason to consider these resolutions the fruit of a slight 
and hasty consideration. They are evidently the result" of 
an understanding of some sort or other between the adminis- 
tration members from the North and the great body of the 
members from the South, and whatever the supposed rashness of 
the latter might dictate, the wariness of the former has seldom 
been off its guard upon the subject of popular rights. 

The imputation of haste and inadvertence is still more strong- 
ly repelled by the well known fact, that the subject of the 
right of petition has been agitated and discussed in Congress, in 
the legislatures of many of the States, and in the public papers, 
for many years. The extreme jealousy and sensitiveness of 
the people on this exciting topic, could not have been overlook- 
ed, nor have failed in dictating a path beyond the reach of all 
constitutional objections, in the opinion of the members from the 
free States who voted in favor of the resolutions in question. 
The cautious language in which the resolutions are couched, 
fully shows that the meaning of every word was fully weighed, 
and totally forbids the idea of negligence or haste. The infer- 
ence from these facts necessarily is, that in the opinion of the 
supporters of these resolutions, they acted within the scope of 
their constitutional powers, and that if they have exceeded them, 
it must have been from ignorance, and not from design or neg- 
ligence. 

Before we condemn them, then, as unconstitutional, we 
ought to be sure that we have considered the subject as mature- 
ly as those who supported them. We ought also to take along 
with us the wise and temperate rule of the Supreme Court o°f 
the United States, in passing upon the Acts of this and every 
other legislative body, never to decide against them except in 
cases in which their unconstitutionality is established beyond all 
reasonable doubt. The necessity of the application of this rule 
is much stronger in the present case, than in cases before the 
Court, because the Court is obliged by law to pass upon such 



(6) 

subjects. It is the performance of an imperative duty devolv- 
ed upon it by the constitution from which it cannot escape. 
Its errors therefore, like the errors of all who by law are oblig- 
ed to act, are morally and legally excusable by the necesssity 
which dictates the action. A parent who commits a mistake in 
the correction of his child, is excusable before all human tribu- 
nals. But a mere volunteer who inflicts correction upon his 
neighbors' children, or takes part in their quarrels, stands justi- 
fied 5 by nothing but the positive certainty that his interference is 
legal and just. 

Of this latter character is the interference of this House with 
the proceedings of the National Representatives. 'We are vol- 
unteers. Neither the constitution or the laws of the State un- 
der which we act, nor the constitution nor laws of the U. States, 
in which, as individuals, we are deeply interested, impose this 
task upon us as a duty. We have not even the instructions of 
a majority of our constituents ; on the contrary, in the opinion of 
the undersigned, such action would be contrary to the feelings 
and wishes of a vast majority of the people of Rhode Island. 
No combination of circumstances could possible exist so loudly 
calling for silence and inaction. It is, in reality, a dispute be- 
tween the abolitionists of the North and the slave holders of the 
South. Both these parties have become excited not only to 
rash and imprudent language, but to rash and exceedingly im- 
prudent action. In the progress of this, as in the progress of 
all other disputes, each party avails itself of the mismanagement 
of the controversy by its antagonist, with a view to gain addi- 
tional support. The efforts of the abolitionists have been un- 
wearied and untiring to create an excitement upon the right of 
petition, and, under cover of this subsisting dispute, to enlist the 
wise and discreet yeomanry of Rhode Island under the aboli- 
tion banner, knowing full well that a hostility to the South, upon 
the subject of the popular right to petition, will soon extend to 
hostility upon all other subjects. These abolitionists are before 
us and among us. They are organized throughout the North- 
ern States into compact and disciplined societies, with immense 
sums of money at their command, and they force their papers 
and lecturing and salaried preachers into every town and into 
numerous families ; and it is principally from them that we are 
presented with arguments upon this great and exciting question 
of constitutional law, while the framers and supporters of the 
resolutions, capable, it is presumed, of shedding quite as much 
light on the subject, are not before us, nor are they called upon 
to aid us with their views and reasons. It is, therefore, in the 



, ( 7 ) 

opinion of the undersigned, substantially an ex parte proceed- 
ing ; a proceeding too, under undue and improper excitement, 
and upon a subject in which we are merely volunteers. 

With these preliminary remarks, the undersigned will pro- 
ceed to give his reasons for declining all action upon the subject. 

By the 1st Article ol the amendment of the Constitution, it 
is declared, " That Congress shall make no law respecting an 
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or the press, or 
the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition 
government for a redress of grievances." 

By the 5th Section of the 1st Article of the Constitution, it 
is provided, "That each House may determine the rules of its 
proceedings." 

At the settlement of this country, and for a period long 
anterior, the people of England possessed the constitutional 
right to petition Parliament for the redress of all grievances, 
whether of an individual or of a public nature. The right had 
at times been limited as to the number of signers, it having been 
found, in turbulent times, that large bodies of the people assem- 
bled under the pretence of petitioning Parliament, but in reality 
for other and dangerous purposes. By a statute passed in the 
reign of Charles II, it was therefore enacted, that no petition 
should be signed by more than twenty. This statute, however, 
was repealed or went into disuse long before the adoption of the 
American constitution. And it was a settled right in the 
people of both countries to assemble in any numbers and pe- 
tition for a redress of grievances. The constitution does not 
grant, but recognizes the right, and prohibits its violation by any 
law passed by Congress. It nowhere defines the right, but 
such as it was, transmitted from our English ancestors, so should 
it remain inviolate. 

In order effectually to secure it from invasion, the constitu- 
tion provides that Congress shall pass no law abridging it. It 
does not say that it shall not be affected by a resolution of 
either House. Its prohibition is against any law of Congress : 
and it is well known that there is a wide difference between a 
law of Congress and a resolution of either House. It is hardly 
necessary to state that a law of Congress requires the assent of 
both Houses, and the assent of the President also. And that 
when it has become a law, it operates upon the whole people 
of the United States. A resolution of either House operates 
only within the walls of the House. A law of Congress is per- 
manent, and remains in force until repealed by the power that 



(3) 

enacted it. A resolution of the House expires with the exist- 
ing or present session of the House. 

As the constitution clearly intended that this favorite and 
popular right of petitioning (as important in the view of the 
framers of that instrument as the liberty of speech or the press) 
should not be violated by Congress, or any other power in the 
country, why, it may be asked, did it not provide that Congress 
should pass no law, nor that either House should pass any reso- 
lution abridging the freedom of speech, of the press, or of the 
right to petition ? Was this omission by mistake, or was it by 
design ? 

It will be remembered that the provision securing these 
invaluable rights was not inserted in the original constitution 
itself, but is contained in the amendments. It should also be 
observed that by the original constitution express power was 
given to each house " to determine the rules of its proceed- 
ings." This power is granted in the broadest and amplest 
terms. The extent of it is beyond the reach of doubt. It is 
a power to determine the rules of all its proceedings. It is 
also equally beyond a doubt that any vote of the House upon 
a petition is a part of its proceedings. The moment the peti- 
tion is read or its contents made known, the moment any action 
of the House upon the petition is asked, that action is a pro- 
ceeding of the House, to be regulated solely and exclusively 
by the House. Its proceedings upon such petition are entered 
upon the journals of the House, as are all its other proceedings. 

Previous, then, to the amendments to the constitution,feach 
House possessed the undoubted power to pass any resolution 
in relation to its own proceedings upon any petition or other 
business before it. It possessed the undoubted power to pass 
resolutions similar to those of the 12th Dec. 1838. No man 
who values his reputation for sagacity and common fairness will 
question this power, under the original constitution. No man 
will question that the persons, who penned the amendments, 
knew the full and broad extent of this power of the House, and 
no men felt a deeper solicitude to guard and completely pro- 
tect the popular powers of the press, the freedom of speech, 
and the right to petition. Why did not the amendments re- 
peal so much of the power of each House to determine the 
rules of its proceedings as was inconsistent with the freedom of 
speech, of the press, or the right to petition ? Why merely 
protect these rights from invasion by a law of Congress, and 
leave them at the mercy of either House ? 

By the original constitution, the House possessed the un- 






(9) 

doubted power to pass a resolution in the very words- of* the 
resolution of December, 1838: ''That every petition, memo- 
rial, resolution, proposition or paper, touching or relating; 
in any way, or to any extent whatever, to slavery, as 
aforesaid, or the abolition thereof, shall, on the presentation 
thereof, without any further action thereon, be laid on the ta- 
ble, without being debated, printed or referred." This powei, 
tco, was granted to the House in express terms. It was, there- 
fore, a well known power. The Convention of the States, 
which proposed these amendments, was jealous of the powers 
conferred by the original constitution, and the object of the 
amendments was to guard against their abuse. The mem- 
bers of that Convention were among the ablest of the 
times, and intimately acquainted with the constitution, and 
with the established usages of legislative bodies ; and the simple 
reason for protecting the right of petition from a law of Con- 
gress, and not protecting it from the power of the House to 
regulate its own proceedings, was, that the right itself, as it had 
existed for ages, as it had been practised upon in England and 
in this country, was a right which could be invaded by a law 
of Congress, because a law of Congress would operate upon 
individuals, and individual action, out of doors, by making it 
penal to write or sign a petition. They well knew that no 
resolution of either House, in relation to its own proceedings, 
could, by any possibility, operate upon the right to petition. 

It must be observed that the right to petition has never been 
defined by any statute or written law in England, or in this 
country. Its value and importance have never been called in 
question ; still the extent of the right, at the time of adopting 
the constitution, and even clown to the present period, has 
never been defined, except by legislative usage. When the 
framers of the Amendments to the Constitution recognized 
"the right to petition," they necessarily intended the right 
that had been practised upon in the English and American 
legislatures. Practice, being the basis, is also the limit and 
extent of the right. In England and in all the legislative 
bodies in this country, this right to petition had been constantly 
exercised, and at the same time the power of each House to 
determine the rules of its proceedings has also been exercised, 
in many cases to a much greater extent, and for less cogent 
reasons than exist in the case under consideration. 

What then is the right to petition, as established by the practice 
of five hundred years, and limited and defined by that practice ? 
It is a right to do certain individual acts, not in conjunction 
2 



(10) 

with the house or tribunal appealed to, but wholly indepen- 
dent of that tribunal. It is a constitutional, and consequently 
a legal right, like the right to sue in a court of justice. They 
are alike remedial rights, and equally sacred in the eye of the 
constitution. 

The undersigned lays great stress upon this definition of the 
right to petition, that like the right to sue, it is a right in the 
individual to do certain individual acts, unaided and uncon- 
trolled by the tribunal to which his petition is addressed, and 
that it does not and cannot interfere with the power of that 
tribunal to regulate its rules of proceedings. The power of 
the House to regulate its own action upon the petition never 
can interfere with the equally sacred right of the petitioner to 
regulate his own individual action. If any court should pre- 
vent a plaintiff from purchasing and serving a writ, and entering 
his action in court, the judges would be personally responsible 
in damages for such an interference. It is a legal right, for the 
violation of which the individual is entitled to his legal remedy. 
If this or any other House of Representatives should prevent a 
petitioner from doing any individual act embraced in "the right 
to petition," each member so interfering would be personally 
liable to damages, for that too is a legal right, for the violation 
of which the individual would be entitled to his appropriate 
legal remedy. These individual acts consist in a right in any 
number of men peaceably to assemble, to deliberate upon their 
grievances, to draw a petition in their own language and senti- 
ments, and to present the petition and read it, or make its con- 
tents known to the House appealed to. All these are acts of 
the individuals, or such individual agents as they may employ. 
The House does not participate in these acts. From the first 
to the last it exercises no control over the individual action of 
the petitioner. From the first to the last there is no joint act 
of the House and the petitioner. All that the petitioner can 
do, he does alone. He is the sole arbiter of his own conduct, 
On the other hand, all that the House can do, it does by itself. 
It is the sole arbiter of its own conduct, but its right to act does 
not commence until the petitioner has performed all the indi- 
vidual acts embraced in " the right to petition." He must put 
the petition in possession of the House, make it a part of the 
business of the House, and invoke the action of the House upon 
it, before the power of the House over it attaches. When that 
power attaches, all power of the individual ceases, and no ex- 
ercise of the power of the House can interfere with the right to 
petition, because the whole right to petition must be exercised 



(11) 

and enjoyed to its full extent, before the petition becomes a 
proceeding of the House. 

A party can never be interrupted in the exercise of a right, 
if from its very nature it must be fully exercised before it comes 
to the possession of the tribunal appealed to. 

It must be borne in mind, that the right to petition is a mere 
right to ask, not a right to demand, and every right to ask 
necessarily implies a duty in the House to hear ; but a right to 
ask and be heard necessarily implies a right to refuse, and to 
refuse in any mode or fori*.! the House may dictate. Both the 
power to ask and the power to refuse may be abused, but an 
abuse of a power is a political, not a legal injury. It is an 
abuse, and a fraudulent abuse, of the power to petition, to ob- 
tain the names of hundreds of children under ten years of age, 
and to let them pass as persons whose opinions are entitled to 
weight. The undersigned has been informed that this has been 
done by the managers of the abolition petitions now before this 
House. It is an abuse of the power, but still the petitioners 
possess the power. It is a political evil, not a legal injury. So 
the House may abuse its just and necessary powers ; but that, 
too, is a political evil, and the remedy is by the ballot box, and 
not by an action at law. Will any lawyer contend that if my 
constitutional right to petition is violated, I have not a remedy 
at law against any one who aids in its violation ? But will any 
one contend that these petitioners before Congress possess any 
legal remedy against the House or the members who voted for 
the resolutions of December 12th? And why will he not? 
Because it does not violate the right to petition, or to do any 
individual act embraced in that right. If there is any abuse of 
the powers of the House in those resolutions, the remedy is a 
political remedy, because the evil is political. 

A law of Congress which controls the action. of the indi- 
vidual out of doors would have interfered with the right to pe- 
tition, and therefore all such laws were prohibited. But a 
resolution of either House acts not upon the proceedings or 
acts of the individual, but upon its own proceedings in the 
House, after the individual has enjoyed his right ; and therefore 
the framers of the Amendments to the Constitution saw that a 
power in the House to determine its own proceedings never 
could interfere with the power of the individual to determine 
his proceedings. Until the present excitement, the under- 
signed believes that no such extended right to petition was 
ever contended for. It is not only a right to petition, but a 
right, as now construed, to dictate to the House what disposition 



(12) 

the House should make of the petition. After hearing it, the. 
House must act, and as it must control its own action, it may 
refuse even to receive the petition, as appears by the following 
precedents. 

On the 9lh April, 1694, a petition was tendered to the 
House, relating to the bill for granting to their Majesties seve- 
ral duties upon the tonnage of ships, and the question being 
put, that the petition be received, it passed in the negative. 

On the 28th of April, 1698, a petition was offered to the 
House against the bill for laying a duty upon inland pit-coal, 
and the question being put, that the petition be received, it 
passed in the negative. 

Similar votes also passed on the 29th and 30th June, 1698, 
upon duties relating to Scotch linens and whale fins imported. 

On the 5th of February, 1703, a petition from the maltsters 
being offered against the bill for continuing the duty on malt, 
and the question being put, that the petition be brought up, it 
passed in the negative. 

On the 21st December, 1706, Resolved, That this House 
will receive no petition for any sum of money, relating to pub- 
lic service but what is recommended from the Crown. 

On the 11th of June, 1713, this is declared to be a standing 
order of the House. 

On the 29th of March, 1707, Resolved that the House will 
not proceed upon any petition, motion, or bill, for granting any 
money, or for releasing or compounding any money owing to 
the Crown, but in a committee of the whole House, and this 
is declared to be a standing order. 

On the 8th of March, 1732, a petition being offered against 
a bill depending, for securing the trade of the Sugar Colonies, 
it was refused to be brought up. A motion was then made 
that a committee be appointed to search for precedents in rela- 
tion to the receiving or not receiving petitions against the im- 
posing of duties ; and the question being put, it passed in the 
negative. 

It will be remembered that these resolutions passed within 
a few years after the famous Declaration of Rights, in 1668, in 
which the right to petition is recognized as the undoubted right 
of every subject. 

Very recently a petition or remonstrance of the citizens of 
York, Penn. approving the act of the President in removing 
the deposites, was presented to the Senate of the United States, 
and having been read, Mr. Clay objected to its reception, and 
on the question shall it be received, it was determined in the 
negative. Yeas 20, Nays 24. 



( fe ) 

" On motion of Mr. Preston, the yeas and nays being de- 
sired by one-fifth of the members, those who voted in the af- 
firmative were, 

Benton, Brown, Forsyth, Grundy, Hendricks. Hill, Kane, 
King of Alabama, King of Georgia, Lyon, M'Kean, Man- 
sum, Morris, Robinson, Shepley, Tallmadge, Tipton, White, 
VVilkins, Wright.— 20. 

Those who voted in the negative, are 

Bibb, Black, Calhoun, Clay, Clayton, Ewing, Frelinghuy- 
seiij Kent, Leigh, Moore, Naudain, Poindexter, Porter, Prentiss, 
Preston, Robbins, Silsbee, Smith, Southard, Sprague, Swift, 
Tomlinson, Waggaman, Webster. — 24." 

It was formerly a common practice of this House, to hear ob- 
jections from creditors to even the reception of petitions for the 
insolvent acts, and their reception was often refused. Neither 
the English Commons, nor the Senate of the United States, 
nor this House of Representatives, ever deemed that the right 
to petition extended necessarily to even the reception of the 
petition. The petitions were read, and if the House weie 
against any action upon them, they refused to receive them. 
It may be prudent to examine our own practice, before we con- 
demn the much less doubtful practice of the national House of 
Representatives. 

The undersigned then contends, that there must be a point 
where the right to petition ends, and the power of the House 
commences ; that the constitution could not intend that the one 
right should conflict with the other; that, by an express grant, 
it has conferred the sole power upon the House, the moment 
the petition becomes a part of the proceedings of the House ; 
that this proceeding is a legislative proceeding, in which no one 
can participate but members of the House, duly elected by the 
people, and representing the whole people ; that even a resolu- 
tion of the House or a law of Congress, giving to the petitioner 
any voice in the proceedings of the House, would be unconsti- 
tutional and void, because all the power is delegated to the 
members, and they possess no power to delegate any portion 
of it to other individuals; that this power in a petitioner to de- 
mand any other action of the House, than hearing his petition, is 
not embraced in "the right to petition," because that is a right 10 
individual action, and not a right to control legislative action ; that 
the extent of this right, not being defined in the constitution, 
but wholly by usage, must be ascertained by usage ; and that 
the usage of every legislative body in the civilized world is 
against the right as now asserted. 



(14) 

The undersigned would remind the House, that he simply 
asserts the constitutionality of 'the resolutions of December, 1838. 
With their policy or prudential character, we have nothing to 
do. It would be highly indecorous in one legislative body to 
pass a judgment upon the policy or expediency of the action of 
another. Neither can we say, with any regard to truth or pro- 
priety, that these resolutions have a tendency to impair the 
right to petition. They are either within the constitutional 
power of the House, or they are not. If they are, no exercise 
of the constitutional power of the House, can tend to impair 
the constitutional right of the petitioner. There is a line that 
separates the one right from the other. If the House has pass- 
ed that line, it has invaded the right of the petitioner, and its 
resolution is unconstitutional. If it has not, no exercise of 
power, within that line, can tend to invade the rights on the 
other side, any more than the occupation and cultivation of one 
of two adjoining landowners upto'the dividing line, can tend to 
injure the rights of the other adjoining owner. 

The undersigned has endeavored to obtain from those who 
differ from him, their views of the location or position of this 
dividing line, but without success. If the right to petition is 
not complete upon the presentation and reading of the petition, 
if all power and control of the petitioner over it, is not terminat- 
ed the moment the action of the House commences, when does 
it terminate? The resolution of Dec. 1838, declares, that all 
papers on the table, or which may be presented during the pres- 
ent session, upon the subject of slavery, shall lie upon the table, 
without any action, debate or reference thereof. 

It should be borne in mind, that there is a material differ- 
ence between petitions relating to private, and petitions relat 
ing to public affairs. With the facts of all private petitions, 
the members are usually unacquainted, and a reference to a 
committee is the ordinary mode of investigating them. The 
final action of the House is also upon the petition, by a vote, 
granting or rejecting it. 

The case is entirely different in relation to petitions upon 
subjects of a public nature. The members are presumed to 
know all the facts in regard to slavery in the District of Co- 
lumbia, quite as well as the petitioners. The fact that slavery 
is there tolerated by law, that slavery is an evil, and that Con- 
gress possesses the constitutional power to remove it, need 
not be established by a committee. The action of the House 
is different from its action upon private petitions. No vote or 
direct action is ever had upon the petitions themselves. In 



( to ) 

fact, the petitions are little more than suggestions of the pe- 
titioners, of reasons for or against a particular law. If those 
suggestions convince any one or more of the members, a bill 
is introduced and the whole action of the House is upon the 
bill. The petitions are never thought of or noticed, after the 
introduction of a bill. On the contrary, if the members think 
the reasons of the petitioners of insufficient weight, no bill is 
introduced, and the petitions breathe their last, upon the table, 
or in the hands of a committee. This is tantamount to a re- 
jection of the petitions. Our own practice is the same. Dis- 
posing of the subject to which the petitions relate, is disposing 
of every petition, memorial or paper now before us, or which 
may be presented during the present session. We have before 
us numerous petitions upon license laws. Is it not constitu- 
tional to resolve that we will not act upon that subject at the 
present session? Would not such a resolution virtually and 
effectually postpone any petition now, or which may come be- 
fore us, until the ensuing session ? Is it not a virtual rejection 
of the petitions, at least for the present ? 

The resolution of the 12th December, 183S, is either a 
postponement of the whole subject of slavery, or a refusal to 
legislate upon it. In either view, can the power of the House 
be doubted ? Has it not been repeatedly exercised by this 
and every other House of Representatives in the country ?* 

* In connexion with this branch of the subject, it may not be amiss to 
quote the following extract from a speech made by Mr. Whipple in defence 
of the principles of his Report: 

" But it is asked what is the right of petition worth und >r such a mode 
of disposing of petitions. What is the right of petition worth in any case 
where the tribunals appealed to differ in opinion with the petitioners ? 

This popular argument confounds the value of the right with the right 
itself. The value of the right, from its very nature, depends entirely upon 
the action of the House ; but the right itself is unimpaired and unabridged, 
though rendered of no value by its want of success. 

What is the value of the right to petition this House to repeal our law 
of partible inheritances, and to restore the ancient rule of ^primogeniture ? 
Of what value is the right to petition for an extension of the elective fran- 
chise ? We all possess an undoubted light to petition for an order of no- 
bility. No law of the State nor lesolulion of this House, in the slightest, 
degree, has abridged this right. But of what value is it ? What destroys 
the value but the same cause which destroys the value of the right to peti- 
tion Congress for the abolition of slavery ? It is the unanimous and ad- 
verse opinion here, and the unanimous and adverse opinion there that ren- 
ders the right of no value. But here, as there, the right itself is not abridg- 
ed. 

The value of most of our rights depends upon the exercise of the rights 
of others. I possess the undoubted right to ride with my family through 
eny of the public streets of this city. No one can abridge that right. But 
of what value is it, when a thousand troops, with their martini music and 
martial flags, render its exercise dangerous to life or limb ? 

A riparian proprietor possesses the undoubted right to use a stream of 



(16) 

The undersigned, respectfully to those of a different opinion, 
frankly confesses that his only difficulty in the consideration of 
this subject has been to ascertain the limit and extent of " the 
right to petition," as contended for by others. The framers of 
the articles of amendment were familiar with the usages and 
practice of the English and American legislatures. They 
well knew that by universal usage the petitioners possessed no 
right to be heard as to the disposal of petitions. They well 
knew that no such right had ever been contended for. If they 
had believed in the existence of a right of this extent, why 
was the whole power of disposal conferred upon the House? 
Did they mean that the whole power to dictate whether the 
subject of slavery should be debated or referred to a commit- 
tee, should be in the petitioners ? If not the whole, what 
part 1 The whole power must be in the House, or it must be 
in the petitioners. There cannot be a partnership power to be 
exercised by both, for if they differ, the whole business of the 
House must stop, there being no third power or umpire to de- 
cide between them. 

The resolutions of the 12th December, as the undersigned 
understands them, simply amount to this ; that as the House 
had determined not to legislate upon the subject of slavery dur- 
ing the present session, all papers referring to that subject, and 
all that should hereafter be presented, should be read and re- 
ceived and laid upon the table. They do not deny to any pres- 
ent or future petitioner the right to have his petition read and 
received, but declare that they do not mean to act on that sub- 
ject during the present session. The words present session are 
not mentioned, but every member of the House well knew that 
the resolution could not bind their successors, but must expire 
with the existing session. Had there been a simple resolution 
declaring that the House would not act upon the subject of slavery 

water for purposes of irrigation. But its value is completely destroyed 
by the exercise of similar rights by those above him, by which the stream 
is wholly absorbed. The right of petition is eminently of this dependent 
character. Its value depends wholly upon the judgment and feelings of 
the body appealed to. A favorable judgment does not enlarge the right ; 
it only increases its value in a given case. An unfavorable judgment does 
not abridge the right, but lessens or destroys its value. Success or defeat is 
the test of value, but what has either to do with the unabridged existence 
of the right itself? To say, that the Atherton resolutions, passed as they 
were by a large and adverse majority, impair the value of the right to pe- 
tition upon that particular subject, is saying nothing, and worse than 
nothing, for it is an admission that not the right itself but merely its value 
has been abridged. Every court possesses the constitutional power to de- 
stroy the whole value of a plaintiff's action by an adverse decision. But. 
does such decision abridge his constitutional right to sue ?" 



(n) 

at this session, would there have existed a doubt of their con- 
stitutional right so to do ? It is admitted that there would not. 
And yet the effect of such a vote, without any reference to the 
petitions on the table, or those hereafter presented, would have 
been precisely the same as the present resolutions. Resolutions 
postponing a whole subject are passed by this House at almost 
every session, and all future petitions are postponed as a matter 
of course. It also silences all further debate, a right quite as 
important as the right to petition. 

No views which the undersigned has been able to take, with 
the assistance of some of his legal friends, have raised a doubt in 
his or their minds as to the constitutionality of those resolutions. 
On the contrary, there are many circumstances known to all of 
us, which rendered some general action or disposition of the 
subject indispensably necessary. 

These, or other petitions of a similar character, have been 
before Congress for many years. It is not pretended that any 
facts exist with which the members are not acquainted. The 
prayers of these petitions have been denied, session after session ; 
for upon petitions for a public law a neglect to bring in a bill is 
a denial of the prayer. 

The petitioners are dissatisfied with these repeated decisions 
upon the subject, and are determined not to acquiesce, but o 
pour in upon the House such a flood of new petitions as will in- 
fluence by their numbers, where they have failed to convince by 
their arguments. In courts of justice, parties are not allowed a 
hearing upon a question of law once solemnly settled by the 
same court. Is a House of Representatives obliged to debate 
and refer to committees one or two hundred thousand petitions 
at every session, upon a subject that they have over and over 
again decided ? They are obliged to read, and do read and re- 
ceive them, and in the opinion of the undersigned, any further 
action upon them is not required by the right to petition, nor 
even by any sound principle of policy, until some member can 
be found having sufficient confidence in the subiect to introduce 
a bill. J 

The undersigned cannot blind himself to the fact that this 
question of the right to petition, proceeds wholly from abolition 
feeling, and is used as an instrument to attain abolition objects. 
It is an attempt to add political heat to abolition fury. In the 
opinion of the undersigned, the sincere, judicious friends of 
manumission, are those most opposed to abolition societies ; for so 
long as these societies exist, so long will manumission, with the 
consent of the master, remain a hopeless object. The mild and 
3 



(18) 

persuasive measures of the earliest friends of abolition diffused 
the light of reason, without arousing the lion passions of the 
heart. The slave-holder was addressed by the gentle Quaker, 
not as one having power to dictate and control, but in the true 
spirit of love and meekness. He was addressed by the manu- 
mission in other states, and the increased advance in industry, 
wealth and refinement, which it produced ; by the examples of 
France and England, and also by a still more effective agent, the 
power of the whole body of English and American literature which 
surrounded his mind, as a sort of atmosphere, with its perpetual 
exhalations of light and truth. That mind was already bending 
under these mild and genial, but perpetually operating influences. 
A divided opinion was created in the south. Breaches were 
made of considerable magnitude in all the defences of slavery, 
and in all human probability a few years more would have 
completed what had so happily been commenced by mild 
and natural agencies. But the stern bigot, and the sour fanatic, 
pushed aside the gentle and judicious Quaker, and all that had 
been accomplished by the latter was lost, and worse than lost to 
the friends of freedom, by the blindness and fury of the former. 
Numerous societies were formed and large sums of money sub- 
scribed. Powerful presses were employed to keep up a con- 
stant and galling fire, and numerous and well paid agencies 
established all over the Northern States, constituting, in the 
aggregate, an array of force and power, which overspread the 
whole southern mind with fear and alarm, and, from a weaken- 
ed and divided state, drove it into one firm, united, compact, 
and hostile feeling. 

Until these moral troops are disbanded, until the morning 
and evening blast of their hostile trumpet ceases to sound in 
the Southern ear with its din of dreadful preparation ; until 
this moral war, to call it by its gentlest name, waged by those 
who truly believe that they are doing their duty to their God 
to put down slavery even at the expense of the union and 
quiet of this before peaceful country ; until then, not even a 
hope exists of the emancipation of the slaves of the South 
with the consent of their masters. Every accession of strength 
to these societies is binding the chain still stronger upon the 
unhappy African. Every legislative resolution loosens our 
bond of Union, and hastens the period of war and bloodshed. 
Every step, in this infuriate and dangerous course, proves that 
even in Rhode Island the maniac power of religious bigotry 
was caged and chained, and not annihilated, as we had fondly 
believed. Loose it from its long confinement, give it the power 



(19) 

of numbers and wealth, and coax it into action by legislative 
sympathy, and you fasten upon the North a slavery of mind as 
dark and benighted, as that which palsied the christian world 
in the days of the Inquisition and Crusades. Give it scope, 
and it will wield its fierce and gigantic power with a blindness 
to all worldly consequences, and an insensibility to all human 
suffering. For the last thousand years it has imprisoned as 
many innocent victims, tortured and lacerated as much human 
flesh, and spilt ten times as much blood, as slavery has done. 
For one, the undersigned cannot ally himself to such a spirit, 
nor to any party, political or moral, that aid in letting it loose 
upon us. He protests against any action upon the subject of 
slavery by the Rhode-Island Legislature. He is worldly mind- 
ed enough still to believe that the Union, our unrivalled con- 
stitution, and the peace and repose of this great American fam- 
ily, are worthy of preservation. If they must fall before the 
spreading power of religious bigotry, if a social and servile war 
must drench in blood this fairest heritage of man, let it not be 
hurried on by the legislators of the descendants of Roger Wil- 
liams. Respectfully submitted by 

JOHN WHIPPLE. 



LETTER FROM THE HON. HARRISON GRAY 
OTIS, TO JOHN WHIPPLE, ESQ. 



JOHN WHIPPLE, ESQ. 

Dear Sir, 

I received with much satisfaction your letter with a report 
to the Legislature of Rhode Island on the Atherton resolu- 
tions, and your speech explanatory of your dissent from that 
report. It is certainly flattering to me to know that 1 live in 
your recollection, and that the opinion of one so long with- 
drawn from the notice of the world, and all participation in 
public affairs, could create either confidence or distrust in your 
own ; formed with the advantage of intellect in full vigor, and 
defended by argument to which nothing of substance can be 
added — your request under these circumstances would have 
imposed upon me an obligation of courtesy to form the best 
opinion I might upon a novel subject. But as your report, 
(though upon a new question which you have disposed of by 



(20) 

an eloquent and conclusive argument,) grows out of an old sub- 
ject — the condition of slavery among our Southern brethren, 
and the relationship between their rights and our duties — which 
has been familiar to my thoughts for half a century ; I was 
quite prepared to examine its merits, and have no other trouble 
in replying to your favor, but that which is common to age — 
a loss where to begin and where to leave off. 

Had I been a member of Congress, called to decide upon 
the Atherton resolutions, I should not have voted for them. 
At the same time I have no doubt of the constitutional power 
of the House to adopt them. But I considered the original 
refusal of Congress to hear, commit and obtain a report upon 
the resolutions regarding slavery in the District of Columbia as 
unfortunate and impolitic. It was sure to be confounded in 
popular belief with a denial of the right of petition itself, and 
thus touch the community in its most irritable nerve. It was 
also an unusual and apparently an unkind and cavalier mode 
of cutting short a new inquiry — or an old one requested under 
new circumstances — entitled to attention on account of the 
number of petitioners. I had also predicted, three years ago, 
in a public speech, that the abolition movement would be 
mingled with political intrigue and party politics. These ob- 
jections I thought would be in a great measure obviated by the 
report of the committee, which, being under the control of 
the majority, would have ended in the same result as laying 
the petitions on the table, without affording plausible occasion 
for offence or complaint. 

But I am equally free to declare that had 1 been a member 
of the Rhode Island Legislature, I should have been found on 
your side in opposing the report of your committee, inasmuch 
as the question there assumed an entirely different aspect. It 
is one thing for Congress to refuse to act upon a petition, and 
another thing for a State legislature to deny the right of the 
former to regulate its own proceedings. There is nothing in 
the Atherton resolutions which negatives the rieht of petition, 
and nothing which in fact impairs its value. A petition in the 
constitutional view is a request offered to a government sup- 
posed to have jurisdiction of the subject, for a redress of some 
grievance. The right to frame, and of consequence to offer 
such petition, belongs to every peaceable assembly of the peo- 
ple. This right also involves the right to make the govern- 
ment acquainted with the subject matter of the petition — not 
to have it read in extenso, as a matter of course, to which there 
may be valid objections. Thousands of petitions may relate 



(21) 

to the same single object, or to objects palpably out of the 
province and competency of the government to decide — or on 
which the minds of a majority may be known to be made 
up. They may be flagrantly indecorous, and numerous and 
voluminous enough to occupy in reading unreasonable time. 
But if not read, the legislature addressed is bound at least to 
hearken to a statement of the subject matter — to be informed 
of the character of the grievances sought to be redressed. 
Otherwise the right of petition would be nugatory — at least 
nominal, and unworthy of a place among the fundamentals of 
a constitution — "the voice" of men "crying in the wilder- 
ness." 

This right thus explained has, I think, an intrinsic value. 
It belongs to the whole and every portion of the people — ex- 
tends to all subjects — is indispensable to an exposition of their 
sentiments and wants, and in popular and paternal govern- 
ments, will, when exercised, command attention and obtain 
relief, unless the first shall, after information and reflection, be 
thought superfluous, and the last inexpedient or impracticable. 
The exercise of this right in a particular case, may, as you 
have ingeniously shown, be of no value. Still the right re- 
mains, and has a value in itself — like a perennial fountain, in 
repairing to which one man's pitcher may be broken and his 
water spilt, while the source remains inexhaustible. 

With this explanation of my views of the right and value of 
the privilege of petition secured by the constitution, I am pre- 
pared to go the whole length of your argument and counter re- 
port in the distinctions so elaborately drawn between the right 
of petition in the people and the right of Congress to regulate 
their own proceedings, and consequently to dispose of petitions 
at their will and pleasure. This you have so amply illustrated, 
that the argument is exhausted, and little more is left me than 
to say, "ditto to Mr. Burke." I will venture, however, to 
make one suggestion confirmatory of your views ; and that, 
not to render them more luminous, (which cannot be done,) 
but merely because it had occurred to me as decisive of the 
question from my own unaided reflection. 

While the abolitionists insist upon the duty of Congress to do 
something more than merely hear their petitions or a statement 
of their contents, they furnish no standard for measuring or de- 
fining its extent. They do not inform us at what stage of pro- 
ceedings it may be allowable for Congress to exercise its discre- 
tion in rejecting or postponing a petition. It would seem rea- 
sonable that the claims of petitioners to the attention of Congress 



(22) 

should not be regarded as of a higher character than those ap- 
pertaining to their representatives on the floor — that the priv- 
ilege of the constituent should not exceed that of a member in 
his place. But it is notorious that the ordinary proceedings of 
Congress are upon resolutions offered by a member or reported 
by a committee. Every member is entitled to offer a resolution 
upon any subject ; and it is equally certain that the house pos- 
sesses and exercises at pleasure, the right of refusing to consider 
resolutions, and of postponing or rejecting them without debate. 
The lips of the member are thenceforth sealed upon the subject 
thus disposed of. Suppose, however, that the same sub- 
ject is afterwards presented in the form of a petition from per- 
sons out of doors — perhaps by the same member, and that the 
House is constitutionally hound to entertain and act upon it be- 
cause it is a petition. The action must be upon resolutions, 
and these must of necessity conflict with the previous decision, 
and supersede the rules that have been applied to resolutions 
on the same subject. Here, then, the right of the House to 
regulate its own proceedings is annulled, by the right of pe- 
tition. 

Let this doctrine be established, and there is no vagary or 
extravagance which an assemblage of petitioners may not con- 
coct into the form of a petition on which Congress must act, or 
violate the constitution. In the JVorth we may petition for the 
abolition of slavery in the United States. The South may ask 
to open the slave trade. One set of persons may propose to 
amend the constitution by abolishing the Executive, or the 
Senate, or the Judiciary ; another by making the President 
eligible for life. There are, possibly, some persons in the 
United States who would prefer a limited monarchy to the 
existing government. Indeed an endless varietv of projects 
over which a great majority of the House may be satisfied 
that Congress has no jurisdiction — or on which their opinions 
are fixed, or which they deem it impolitic, dangerous or pre- 
mature to agitate ; and which they would instantly suppress 
if propounded by one of their own members, would be forced 
upon their deliberations, because, forsooth, the right of pe- 
tition is sacred. Thus the control of its proceedings would 
be taken from Congress and transferred to any and to every 
assemblage of people convened to petition for redress of 
grievances. In fact the right of initiating laws and of com- 
pelling Congress to act upon them would thus be involved 
in the right of petition, and the business of legislation, as 
conducted by every organized body of delegates from time 
immemorial, would become impracticable. 



(23) 

But apart from the merits of this particular question, I free- 
ly confess that I regard with deep concern the intervention of 
our State legisJature in any shape regarding the abolition of 
slavery in the South. It is none of our affair. We can do 
nothing towards changing or abolishing that condition, but may 
do, as we have done, very much towards aggravating its evils. 
If slavery is a stain, it is one with which the Union was born, 
and which cannot be removed by our effort unless by cutting 
off the limb which wears it. To judge correctly on this sub- 
ject} we must not only resort to the federal constitution, but 
go behind it. The members of the first Congress came from 
the South with a consciousnesof a peculiar interest arising from 
their slave holding tenure. From the North they went under 
the impression that all men were " born free," and would be- 
come so cle facto, whenever the colonies should be declared 
independent. Within my remembrance, in the years '75 and 
'76, the volunteer minute men paraded the streets with metallic 
letters, " no slavery," on their caps — which, though not intend- 
ed peculiarly to bear upon the condition of the African race in 
the South, — pointed towards it. Is was not easy for the men 
of the North to reconcile these doctrines of universal liberty, 
with the same doctrine professed by the South, but qualified, 
practically, by their holding slaves in bondage. There was 
then no resource but to leave that subject at rest, and to secure 
the confidence of the South by leaving slavery to state jurisdic- 
tion. It was in concession to the jealousies, fears, prejudices 
and habits of the South, principally emanating from this one 
cause, that Peyton Randolph was unanimously chosen Presi- 
dent of the first Congress, and George Washington Comman- 
der of the Army. And it is notorious that this was the source 
of the " embarrassments " and " delay," in forming the confed- 
eration of 1778, and in combining into one general system the 
various sentiments and interests of a continent divided " into so 
many sovereignties and independent* communities," which are 
so forcibly set forth in the address to the people of the States 
by the Congress of the preceding year. Looking into the con- 
federation itself, we find that the parties to it are the " free, in- 
habitants of each of these States." — terms involving the reco^- 
nition of slavery, and a virtual assent to exclude slaves from the 
rights of freedom. Passing down to the era of the federal 
constitution, it is manifest that the institution of slavery is by 
that instrument assented to, and agreed to be "protected. The 
agreement to surrender fugitive slaves, and to tolerate the im- 
portation for a term of years would have been a perfidious mock- 



(24) 

ery, if the right were mentally reserved of rendering these 
clauses inoperate by promoting the liberation of slaves restored 
or imported. Equally delusive would be the power granted to 
the general government of "suppressing insurrections," — if in 
those most likely to happen, the troops ordered for service 
should be led by the maxims of their legislative commanders to 
favor the insurgents. 

Thus it is beyond controversy, that whatever questions may 
arise respecting the conflict of jurisdiction between the fed- 
eral and the state governments from various constructions of 
the constitutional instrument ; the condition of slavery in the 
several states is manifestly not a case of the constitution — 
noil casus foederis — but one which the people of the United 
States, under full advisement of all circumstances have abso- 
lutely abjured, and covenanted not to agitate by their repre- 
sentatives in Congress. This is, indeed, so incontrovertible 
that I do not find it denied in any quarter. But the admis- 
sion of this plea to federal jurisdiction over slave property irre- 
sistibly draws after it the same conclusion against the right 
of State jurisdiction — and consequently the right of one State 
to attempt, through the medium of its legislature, by its re- 
solutions or enactments, to operate upon the condition of 
slavery rather than upon any other domestic institution of 
another State. Such right, it is self-evident, could have no 
foundation but in a federal compact. Not being found there- 
in it becomes a nonentity. When, therefore, Rhode Island 
and Massachusetts adopt measures intended to have a bear- 
ing on the domestic institutions of South Carolina and Virginia, 
they shoot from their spheres, and assume the attitude of in- 
dependent States making laws at other independent States, 
which can have no legal force ; thus exhibiting a spectacle 
which but for its sinister tendency would merely deserve rid- 
icule as a species of burlesque legislation. I am aware that 
the fanatical sophisters in justification of these vagaries disa- 
vow the expectation and intent of promoting slave emanci- 
pation otherwise than by awakening the consciences and en- 
lightening the understanding of the owners. With individuals 
or associations who sincerely expect to attain the desired con- 
summation by these means, my view of this question has no 
concern. I am not speaking of the freedom of the press, 
nor of speech, nor of pen ; but of legislative propriety and 
dignity — of the wisdom and decorum of legislation by one 
sovereign State, in order to enlighten the bewildered minds of 
the people of another — to enact moral discourses, homilies on 



(25) 

abstract rights, and abusive commentaries on laws and customs 
other than their own — to fulminate anathemas against the 
religious institutions of Canada, or the social institutions of 
Louisiana, which, in this relation, stand on the same parallel. 
Neither does this reasoning apply 10 those who laying their 
hands on their hearts can say, that their subject in inciting the 
action of the State legislature is confined to the District of 
Columbia. Their number, I imagine, is exceedingly small, 
and while they believe it to be expedient and obligatory on 
their consciences to pursue this course, nobody is entitled to 
be judge over them. As to the rest, would to God, the fol- 
ly of our legislative proceedings were the worst of their 
effects. 'But I am profoundly convinced, that if this mania for 
tampering with the slave tenure of the plantation States, shall 
generally pervade the legislatures of the North, or, indeed, be 
permitted to go much further, the days of this Union will 
shortly be numbered. The people of those States already 
think they discern in it, the commencement and slow approach 
of a mine destined to blow their social fabric into air, and they 
will anticipate the explosion by cutting off the communication. 
These suggestions, I am aware, are with many, themes of deri- 
sion and contempt. In a strain of braggart self-complacency 
that undervalues all prowess but their own, they insist that the 
South dare not secede — that the measure would place this fav- 
orite interest in greater jeopardy, and be destruction to other 
interests. As a northern man, I have no disposition to break 
a lance with those who hold to these opinions. I am willing to 
believe that in the event of a partition of the family estates 
they could not manage their share of the inheritance without 
us. But it is lamentably true that they think otherwise, and 
that great names and splendid intellects among them are enlist- 
ed in propagating the opinion that they could not only do as 
well, but better — certainly much better unless we forbear our 
persecution — in a separate establishment : — that their's would 
be the sunshine and our's the shade and the mist. They may 
be entirely mistaken, but in what government is it found that 
the passions of a people or of their rulers excited to a certain 
pitch, do not prevail over their interest ? It was not for the in- 
terest of your ancestors or mine to brave the dangers of a revo- 
lution, that their wives might " sip bohea" without paying a 
duty. And there are many persons among our southern 
brethren — probably a great majority — who regard the perpetual 
assaults made upon their right to their slaves, as menacing dan- 
gers to their property, liberty, lives and social comforts, not 
4 



(26) 

less flagrant than those which united them with us in a com- 
mon cause. 

After all, the blindness of those who deny that the South 
can be forced to a secession from the Union, is less astonishing 
and dangerous than the infatuation of others, who console 
themselves with calculations that the loss would not be sensibly- 
felt by the rest of the confederacy. There would, say they, 
remain enough of population and materielle, for all the objects 
of a grand, prosperous and powerful nation, and sufficient to 
check, and if necessary give law to neighboring States. The 
east and west, as of course, would become, ipso facto, a new 
and homogeneous confederacy, without the trouble of a new 
arrangement among themselves — a cluster plucked from so 
exuberant a vine may easily be spared, and the corps d'armee 
would be more efficient without a wing composed of troops 
who are always disposed to discontent and mutiny, and embar- 
rass the operations of every campaign. 

Whoever, in reply to these reckless enthusiasts, should 
assume the duty of showing the consequence that would be 
found to await the disruption of the Union, would find himself 
not engaged in a school boy's calculation, to be made in a day 
with slate and pencil, at Columbia College, in South Carolina ; 
but in compiling a volume, of no small size, referring to the 
posture of the country prior to the constitution, and analyzing 
the wonderful changes which have occurred with time in its 
commercial, agricultural, political and geographical relations. 
The results of such an investigation would, I fear, prove less 
flattering to the capability of the non-slaveholding States, (and 
especially of New England,) erected into a rival government, 
of persevering in the rapid advance to prosperity hitherto ex- 
perienced, than some of us fondly imagine ; admitting even 
that the scene of separation would be confined to one act, and 
that the rest of the Stars would continue " to sing together." 
But how can any, with the example (and not the fear) of the 
fate of the Republics on the southern continent of this new 
world before their eyes, indulge in the dream that we should 
divide only into two confederacies ? Looking upon the map 
of the American continent, we perceive the garden of the 
world, extending from Mexico and Cape Horn, converted into 
a bear garden. Independent states springing up one day, like 
mushrooms, and withering the next — yet living long enough to 
inflict some new calamity on their people — commit some new 
ravage, add some new disappointment to the friends of liberty — 
one day federal, the next anti-federal ; changing governments, 



(27) 

boundaries and names, so that nothing is constant but the spirit 
of resolution and the cause of agitation, which, with different 
phases, but always enhancing intensity, broods over contiguous, 
jealous, and rival democracies — fomenting their feuds, and 
annihilating their prosperity. With this prospect in full view, 
with the news of contests, dissensions, carnage and desolation, 
and of perpetual civil war made the order of the day, in those 
new-fangled states, we cherish the deceitful imagination that 
we, an enlightened chosen people, are beyond the reach of 
such calamities. There is, we think, some charm in our 
character that will prove, in all events, an antidote to the con- 
tagion of bad principles, and the dangers of anarchy. That 
our people form a variety in the great family of the human 
species, and have a natural aptitude for making constitutions 
and federal compacts. But the only claim of our people to 
good sense pre-eminent over that of other nations must be 
found, if at all, in their having framed, and for so long a time 
administered, a government sufficient for all the objects of gene- 
ral liberty and security, under which we are advancing to the 
highest summit of national prosperity. But the good sense, 
which having acquired these advantages, is not able to retain 
them, and suffers the golden fruit to become an apple of dis- 
cord and fall from her hands, must cease to be a subject of 
boast or reliance. 

The first measure, under the most favorable aspect of sepa- 
ration, that must be inevitable, would be a convention of the 
people of the free states to remodel the constitution, and adjust 
it to the new order of things. A partition treaty of some sort 
for the apportionment of the public domain, and the disposal of 
its property remaining in the South, and for regulating com- 
merce, would be indispensible, and no power can be found in 
the constitution authorising any treaty or contract founded on 
the contingency of a division of the Union. Besides, the dis- 
turbance of the balance of power among the states, the location 
of the seat of government, and innumerable causes springing 
from the prodigious alteration that has occurred and is in pro- 
gress in the relationship of the various parts of the Union to 
each other, would probably occasion a convention to be demand- 
ed with acclamation. Supposing this to take place, are we of 
Rhode Island and Massachusetts quite secure that the first of 
one of the first subjects of discussion would not be a proposal 
for a new basis of state representation in the Senate ? This it 
is notorious was the great stumbling tiock to the framers of the 
federal constitution, which, for a long time, threatened to be in- 



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surmountable. And now that " empire states " have grown up 
within and beyond the old limits, would they be likely to ac- 
quiesce in our aliquot part of political power in one branch of 
the legislature ? If not, should we be ready to resign it ? and 
if not, again, do we not here discover the germ of an outbreak 
which would prove " the beginning of the end?" Again, — 
without attempting to enumerate what no man can number, 
are we of New-England satisfied that the alternative of uniting 
and forming a new confederacy with all the other states would 
be left at our option ? May not the myriads of the " great 
valley " imagine, perhaps truly, that their interests will be more 
closely affiliated with a Southern, than with a Northern con- 
federacy, and that free access to the ocean by their rivers, and 
a free trade with Southern ports will outweigh all other consid- 
erations ? In which case they will set us off " to live in Sin- 
ope." Furthermore, is our prospect of dwelling together in unity, 
even in New-England, of harmonizing in our views of public 
measures and policy altogether cheering ? And are our resour- 
ces so prodigious that we are ready and willing to go alone ? 

In a word, it is manifest that a new convention would be a 
very different assembly from that of its predecessors. No par- 
allel can be formed between the circumstances of the country 
which generated the " constitutional assembly," and its present 
condition. The popular sentiment every where was fixed and 
united in one conviction — the necessity of a federal government 
adapted to all the States. Hence a sympathy in the great 
community resulting from experience of common sufferings, 
and a good humor, from the consciousness of honesty and sin- 
cerity in their aim at a common object. Grave and weighty 
differences of opinion undoubtedly existed, and were brought 
into that convention and debated with " hearts of controversy ;" 
but they were the hearts of great statesmen, patriots and jurists, 
warmed by the zeal which prevails in a congress of ambassa- 
dors, but untainted by the infection of the spirit of personal 
parties, which was as yet unknown. 

In such hands we know it was an Herculean labor to create 
a government for the Union, but they were skillful and experi- 
enced workmen, and had only to apply old and established prin- 
ciples in framing a new model. To this end, men were elected 
in reference only to high character for talents and services in 
the cabinet and the field, with Washington at their head. How 
different then was the honest strife of opinion and debate among 
those men , turning principally upon theories and the great fun- 
damentals of public view and real peculiarities of local institutions 



(29) 

and interests, and aiming sincerely at fair and honorable com- 
promise, which they providentially attained, from that to be 
expected from men sent from a community chafed and embit- 
tered by party passions and collisions, nominated by cabals, by 
the procurement of intrigue, ignorant o( the first principles of 
constitutional or national polity. I cannot doubt that members 
of this description would be found in a new convention, suffici- 
ent to embarrass and defeat any comprehensive scheme of 
policy adapted to the exigencies of a great confederacy of 

StntGS 

The times, my dear sir, are sadly out of joint— the minds of 
men teem with fancies in respect to government, of which our 
fathers never dreamed. No maxim in the science of govern- 
ment seems to be settled except that every thing is to be 
doubted. There is not a clause in the federal constitution 
which some party, when convenience suits, is not ready to 
meet with a special plea or demurrer. The State constitutions 
are like the highways, requiring to be mended every year, and 
which any man, who can handle a spade or pick-axe, is com- 
petent to repair— thus making straight the path for the " march 
of intellect." The reformers are " abroad," especially in those 
places where the " schoolmaster" is at home. And, despite of 
the good sense and illumination of my countrymen, I do not 
believe the soil of Mexico, or Columbia, or Bolivia, or Chili, 
or Peru, is more prolific in all the varieties of political turmoil, 
than would spring up in the hotbed of a new convention of 
these dis-united States. All this, perhaps, may strike you as 
the omen of an old man's dream, and may deserve no better 
estimate. But having in vivid recollection the great events of 
the revolution, from the landing of General Gage m Boston, to 
its close— having known in my boyhood, and in riper age been 
honored by an intimate acquaintance with, many of the mem- 
bers of the old Congress (of which my father was one)— hav- 
in* witnessed the scenes which preceded the adoption of the 
federal constitution, and been familiar with the impediments to 
that happy issue, which filled all minds with agonizing appre- 
hensions for the fate of the country— it is perhaps natural that 
I should feel unutterable concern, as I certainly do, in perceiv- 
ing that the time is coming for the discussion of topics, the 
mention of which in a serious way would once have been re- 
garded as the superfluous raving of a diseased mind. My per- 
sonal acquaintance, too, with the men of the South, in public 
and private life, for more than forty years, has been considera- 
ble, and with some of them my intimacy has been strict and 



<f 









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/ 



durable. I can perceive no justification for my fellow citizens 
on this side of the line of Mason and Dixon, to throw fire- 
brands, arrows and death, on the other side of that line. The 
evil of slavery is not a new discovery, its turpitude was a sub- 
ject quite as familiar to the people of the North when they 
sought the alliance of those of the South, as it is at this hour, 
or at least it was so when they framed the constitution. If 
other nations have since that time abolished slavery in their 
own domain, the consequence is that the amount of misery 
incident to that condition is diminished, and we should be thus 
reconciled to wait for " coming events," however apparently 
remote, rather than to do wrong that right may come of it. 
But the strong and final argument in my mind is that already 
hinted. Our States and legislatures can do nothing but agitate, 
provoke and drive to desperation, our southern brethren, de- 
feating their own object by adding new rivets to the black 
man's chains, which I believe is the effect of every legislative 
movement. 1 am yet to learn how emancipation forced upon 
the planter, admitting the thing to be possible, can be recon- 
ciled with the professions of those who announce the whole 
science of government to consist in promoting the greatest good 
of the greatest number. But I must remember that while 
there is no end to this subject, there must be an end to your 
patience, and am, with great respect and esteem, 

Your obedient servant, 

H. G. OTIS. 
John Whipple, Esq. 

Boston, March 1, 1839. 



